Sima Yan, Emperor Wu of Jin
We are willing to use "Ming Jun" or "Dark Jun" to judge the work performance of ancient emperors throughout their lives. But some people are difficult to define, because their careers can only be described as "tiger tail".
Among them, the emperor's representative was Tang Xuanzong, who was very diligent at the beginning of his reign, and then he was lazy and lazy, which indirectly triggered a turning point in the history of the Tang Dynasty - the Anshi Rebellion.
However, the emperor we are going to talk about below is more special, if it were not for the face of divination, he would not even pretend. This person was the founding emperor of the Jin Dynasty, Sima Yan, the Emperor of Jinwu.
<h1 class="pgc-h-center-line" data-track="5" >01 to Jin Dynasty Wei</h1>
It was the general trend for the Sima family to become emperor, which was the same as the number of ways for the Cao family to represent the Han Dynasty in those years. But the difference is that Cao Cao picked up the Han regime from a place of chicken feathers at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, and cleaned it up and decorated it again. There is an absolute advantage in strength, but there is no difference in public opinion.
The Sima family was relatively strong in terms of public opinion, but the country was full of vested interests in the Cao Wei regime, so from the time of Sima Yi, a cruel policy of slaughter was adopted for those who disobeyed them.
This approach is understandable, but not advocated. Under the bloody crackdown policy, the common people have some psychological obstacles to the Sima family. Coupled with the constant trouble between Eastern Wu and the northern nomads, Sima Yan, the emperor of the Jin Dynasty, was worried about the nascent regime.
On the first day of his ascension to the throne, he carried out "exploration", that is, to find a national teacher to draw lots to divinate the fortunes of the country. This kind of thing was supposed to be done in secret, but in order to build confidence in everyone, the emperor chose to broadcast it live to the public.
He asked guoshi, "How many generations can I pass on to the Great Jin Dynasty?" ”
With a shake of the barrel, the divination sign marked "one" fell to the ground.
The Great Jin Dynasty can only be passed on for one generation!?
There was silence above the main hall, the emperor was so angry that his face was pale, and the courtiers were too frightened to speak out. Only Pei Kai stood up confidently and said, "First, the center of the world, I wish my Lord the submission of the four sides." ”
Pei Kai's words were not blind, he quoted Wang Bi's "Notes on Lao Tzu". This book is Wang Bi's exhaustive lifelong study of Lao Tzu's writings, this book marks the transformation of ancient Chinese philosophy from exploring the universe to obtaining philosophy to studying the material ontology, and is the beginning of Wei and Jin metaphysics, which was very marketable at that time.
<h1 class="pgc-h-center-line" data-track="15" >02 Wide open speech</h1>
Sima Yan, the Emperor of Jinwu, was very grateful to Pei Kai for saving the scene, but in the final analysis, he still thought that the word "one" was not very auspicious. For the sake of the country's development, he decided to brainstorm and broaden his speech.
The imperial court first imitated the system of "filial piety and honesty" and recruited "people who are wise and honest and outspoken" from the whole country. However, it is not known whether the preparation is insufficient or the system is not perfect, and the effect of the first two batches is not good. "Not good" to the history books are too lazy to mention the names of these people.
It was not until the third batch that several celebrities appeared, such as Liu Ling who was "drunk", Suo Jing who was "copper camel thorns", Ruan Zhong, author of "Gifting Thorns according to Poetry", and Hao Yi, which we will focus on below.
Compared with Liu Ling and others, Hao's popularity is not high. However, there is an idiom in China that is related to it, and this idiom is called Toad Palace Folding Gui. He was born into a family of eunuchs and had seen far more than his peers from an early age.
Some of the issues that the emperor was more concerned about at that time were natural disasters, governance, and moral indoctrination.
In the first 7 years of the founding of the Jin Dynasty, disasters occurred every year. Droughts, floods, earthquakes... Relay for shifts. Frequent visions were not a good thing in ancient times, which was one of the main reasons why the Jin Dynasty did not win the hearts and minds of the people in the early days.
Sima Yan's greatest concern is how to provide disaster relief and how to make disasters not happen again. To tell the truth, no one has the ability to answer how to stop the disaster, let alone the Jin Dynasty more than a thousand years ago.
Choosing to seek truth from facts, he said bluntly: Disasters cannot be stopped, but the government has the ability to provide disaster relief. As long as there are sufficient food reserves, and at the same time, the policy of tax reduction and exemption for the disaster-stricken areas is appropriate, and they are exempted from military service and forced labor, then we are not afraid of disaster.
The concept of governing the country is actually the biggest weakness of the Sima family. After experiencing the chaos of the late Eastern Han Dynasty and the turmoil of the Cao Wei regime, it was difficult for the Sima family, which had survived along the way, to take "benevolence and morality" as the foundation of their existence.
So should governing the country also have to kill decisively? He believed that it was necessary to implement the "royal way" and not "overbearing", which made Sima Yan establish a determination to respect Confucianism, build schools, and improve the etiquette system.
Finally, there is moral indoctrination, and what kind of standards should be used as the code of conduct for ordinary people.
He pointedly pointed out: It is not the fault of the people, but the fault of the officials. It is precisely because the moral quality of officials is not high that they cannot play a leading role for the people, and he advocates "electing wise people" as officials.
From a modern point of view, the words are empty words that do not touch the ground, and slogans can be said by anyone. However, Sima Yan formulated the Jin Li and the Tai Shi Calendar, and replaced the three dukes and nine secretaries with the three provinces system...
It can be seen from this that this is the modification design of the system made by Emperor Wu of Jin after listening to everyone's opinions. It is not unreasonable for him to list his proposal as a high grade (excellent grade).
It is precisely because of the broad opening of the way of speech and the pooling of wisdom that the Jin Dynasty regime stabilized the world in a short period of time.
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Strictly speaking, the Western Jin Dynasty really only passed on for one generation. After Sima Yan's crown prince ascended the throne, the Western Jin Dynasty immediately fell into turmoil and perished shortly after. The later founding emperor of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, Sima Rui, was Sima Yan's nephew.
Some people say that Sima Yan chose an idiot to be the prince. Because this prince named Sima Zheng once left a famous saying in the year of the catastrophe, "Why not eat meat paste".
But was the demise of the Western Jin Dynasty really Sima Zheng's responsibility? In the eyes of many people, it is more like the fault of the founding emperor. After seeing that the world was gradually stabilizing, Sima Yan began to deliberately avoid the problem, and Hao Yi was keenly aware of the emperor's ideological changes, but several suggestions were ignored.
Especially after the fall of Eastern Wu, Emperor Wu of Jin, who thought that he had created an immortal deed, began to lie on the merit book and enjoy the blessings of Qing, began to be lazy and lazy, and ignored the opinions of others. As a result, many hidden dangers that could have been eliminated gradually flooded, and finally erupted in a concentrated manner during Sima Zheng's tenure.
Author: Our special guest author Kan Dashan
References: "This Jin Dynasty is so interesting", "Those Things about the Jin Dynasty"